Hannah Waddingham to Star in Chichester Festival Theatre's KISS ME KATE

Hannah Waddingham will play Lilli Vanessi in Trevor Nunn's Kiss Me Kate at the Chichester Festival Theatre, which will open June 18, the UK Daily Mail reports. She will star opposite the previously announced Australian actor Adam Garcia, who will play ladies' man Bill Calhoun, as well as Clive Rowe and David Burt, who will play the pair of gangsters who sing Brush Up Your Shakespeare. Stephen Mear will choreograph.

Waddingham, who has a small part in the upcoming film version of the musical Les Miserables, starred in Nunn's production of A Little Night Music. She most recently starred in the West End revival of The Wizard of Oz as the Wicked Witch of the West. Waddingham's extensive work in the theatre includes the roles of the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot (a role she originated in the West End, and played on Broadway), Into The Woods (Regent's Park Open Air Theatre), Bad Girls The Musical (West Yorkshire Playhouse), A Chorus of Disapproval (Theatr Clywd), Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Likes of Us (Sydmonton Festival), The Beautiful Game (Cambridge Theatre) and Lautrec (Shaftesbury Theatre). She has been twice nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Musical (in 2007 for Spamalot and in 2010 for A Little Night Music). Her television credits include My Hero, William and Mary, Coupling and Footballers' Wives.